20 Tips For Your First Job

Six months ago, I tweeted a list of 20 tips for people starting their first job that day (June 1st). The list was partly or fully re-posted all across the web, but people keep asking me for a link to the tips. So I guess I should post them here on my own blog as well.

Write down everything you do, and be prepared to show it to your manager if ever asked “so what have you done this month?”

A job is not a competition, no matter what you may have heard. Your coworkers are on your team, as is your manager.

This is not school/college. You won’t lose marks because you don’t know something. You WILL if you don’t say so!

Don’t be afraid of stating an opinion – be afraid of NOT stating one. You could be wrong, but won’t know if you don’t pipe up!

Employers aren’t really looking for a bunch of yes-(wo)men. But they aren’t looking for a bunch of revolutionaries, either.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially if you are young. You will thank me for this advice.

Dare to look beyond your given assignment. “Good enough” never is.

Take criticism of your work as a compliment – your work got noticed! Now fine-tune it to get it right.

If you thought that everything you learnt in college was irrelevant, you are about to get a wakeup call. Never stop learning.

Smile. It makes everything better, every job easier, every person nicer, everyone around you happier. (I never learnt this)

Despite what it feel like, no one (manager, co-worker) is out to get you. If you perform well, everyone wins.

Being better than others doesn’t get you a promotion or a raise. Helping the team to be as good as you, however, does.

There is no tip #13.

Listen. Carefully. Ask questions – the only stupid question is the one you DON’T ask.

It’s always about the team, the work and the organisation – never about you. (I learnt this when it was almost too late).

If you find yourself with no assigned task, either ask for one, or go looking for stuff you can do.

#2. A job is not a competition, but not all of your coworkers know this. Be careful of those who think it is a competition because they are in fact out to get you (#11). This is especially true if you’re both vying for the same post, eg, two temp workers trying to get a single perm position.

Also, due to Relative Peer Ranking (RPR), raises and promotions are given to people who perform better than their peers in the same team. This has the unfortunate side effect of making some people bad mouth you just so that you don’t get the top spot. You’d better hope that your manager can tell the difference. Unfortunately, there are managers who can’t.